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You are here:Home»Unmasking Savitar: 5 Fan Theories About the Big Bad Speedster

Unmasking Savitar: 5 Fan Theories About the Big Bad Speedster

Image Credit: The CW

This season’s big bad on The Flash isn’t just a classic tale of Barry versus a villain. It’s an actual mystery. We have no idea who the person calling themselves Savitar, God of Speed actually is. All we know as fans is that this bad guy plans to end the Barry and Iris love story for good. And that’s not good.

Yet even without a whole lot of clues as to the real identity of Savitar, fans have some theories. Here are a just a few of the theories we’ve come across waiting for the big reveal. Brace yourself, some may be spoilers.

Savitar is just a myth come to life

This particular theory comes from John Wesley Shipp, none other than Jay Garrick himself. Shipp told Comic Book Resources that his character, Jay, isn’t quite sure Savitar exists at all. Savitar, according to Shipp, is “a Speed Force myth and — as an unseen, unknown fear — is even bigger than you know.” It’s an interesting take on things, that this bad guy is just a myth brought to life by a belief. But wouldn’t that make Savitar something of a big group hallucination? And didn’t Barry actually manage to wound Savitar?

HR is Savitar

The folks over at Inverse have a pretty solid theory that our goofy, adorable HR from Earth-19 is actually Savitar. They have some good reasons backing their theory. For starters, HR is incredibly different from other iterations of Wells. HR isn’t a scientist, he’s a novelist who jumped universes looking for inspiration for the next book. And this theory does have a pretty convincing clue. HR always calls Wally by his full name, Wallace. Savitar does the same thing. Coincidence? Or proof that HR is, or eventually becomes, Savitar? It’s not impossible, but the fact that Barry’s seen HR and Savitar in the future at the same time kind of makes this theory a little less plausible.

Savitar is an old JSA enemy

We know that The Flash in habits the same universe as DC’S Legends of Tomorrow. On Legends they introduced the Justice Society of America and ended up bringing one of that team, Vixen, along with them. For Mike Cecchini at Den of Geek, that door may have opened up just wide enough for Savitar to run through. Savitar does say he’s the first speedster. What if he is and is simply time displaced thanks to the efforts of the Legends? He did interact with the JSA in comics after all and comic history needs to be taken into account even if we do like television’s Savitar’s costume better.

Future Barry is Savitar

This might be the hardest of the theories to swallow, but it’s the one we’re most worried about. The clues seem like they’ve been there all along. What clues? That message Barry forty years in the future sent the Wave rider that warned the team not to trust him for one. Barry’s the only person who can see Savitar, at least at first. Savitar even says that he’s the future Flash, though we’re not quite sure what his intended punctuation was. But before you claim that Barry would never hurt Iris, we also need to point out that all season long we’ve seen characters have sides to them. Caitlin and Killer Frost. Julian and Alchemy. What if Barry’s second side is every bit as savage as the kind of monster who could kill Iris? Present Barry’s never going to recover from that one. Pretty sure we won’t either.

There is no Savitar, only Zoom

Not particularly likely considering we’ve seen Zoom as a speed zombie a few times this season, this theory is one that is at least fun to kick around and help us not think about Barry going evil. Zoom’s not exactly a friend of Barry’s and they did part in kind of bad terms last season when Barry defeated him by letting time revenants come and tear Zoom apart. Since speed is energy and energy is only transferred and not destroyed, maybe Savitar is just a new version of Zoom come back for revenge.

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No matter who actually ends up being Savitar we still have a few weeks without our Scarlet Speedster. That’s plenty of time for us Flash fans to figure out this mystery. Who do you think Savitar is? Let me know in the comments so maybe we can solve this mystery before new episodes return.